Last summer we went back and piled cousins and aunts into a rented house. until it becomes Main Street. In 1816, keepers salaries varied from $150 per year at Plymouth Lighthouse to a well-deserved high at Boon Island of $400. Established in 1873, Yaquina Head Lighthouse, in Newport, Oregon, is the states tallest at 93 feet. I had read that. Waller is recognized as an expert and has been an advocate for restoration, appearing in The Last Lightkeeper, an Amazon documentary released late last year. I look back at the months that we spent on Boon Island as a marvelous part of my life. But her description of the water system would disgust most people. The museum has the following table of lens sizes posted. One exception is the countrys actual last official lightkeeper still working for the Coast Guard: Her name is Sally Snowman, and her job and second home, Boston Light, are in jeopardy. Brides (1939 1940), Percy A. Evans (1940 1942). In February 1936, Tornberg and a Cohasset boatman set off in a small dory for the lighthouse, as Cohasset Harbor was frozen in preventing the use of a power launch. In addition, a supply shed, measuring twelve by twenty feet, and a brick oil house were erected on the island. It is two miles from Graves and allows tours. See Photos. Stay up-to-date with important news developments, delivered right to your inbox. Image courtesy of The Power of the Invisible Sun, by Bobby Sager.Last week Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, hosted a concert at Carnegie Hall to benefit the Rainforest Fund, the nonprofit they . Minots was constructed to replace an earlier light, which was swept away in a storm. In the old days, a light keeper lit the lens and hand-cranked weights to rotate the light, each sending out an identification signal or patternGravess is two white flashes every twelve secondsto guide mariners to shore, back where we came from in East Boston. My dad grew up in the harbor the light protects, and my grandmother trolled for striped bass with a handline out past the ledge. 5th Ive been knocked down by it on the wharf beside the light, and opening a window to look out more than halfway [65 feet] up the tower, Ive had as much as three buckets-full dashed in my face.. Bobby has created an easy way for those that would like to make a difference and a way for anyone to send a Hope Soccer Ball to underprivileged children. To see these, take Route The illuminating apparatus was changed in 1885 to burn mineral oil instead of lard oil, and then in 1894, a new second-order Fresnel lens was installed atop the lighthouse. The Blizzard of 1978 helped write the last chapter in Boon Islands history as a manned light. At the time it was the most anyone had paid for a lighthouse. Hanna soon realized the sum was insufficient and requested $450 annually. Right in her hair.So after that, she started using the chamber pots. The Graves project may be the most elaborate and celebrated lighthouse restoration in history. He says no. After crossing the bridge, take 2 They always say the best government is a benevolent king because his heart is in the right place, he says. On August 22, 1860, the towers second-order Fresnel lens was test lighted, but the formal establishment of the light did not occur until November 15, 1960, when Minots Ledge Lightship was withdrawn. No one in my family lives in the Scituate harbor anymore, and its morphed from a fishing town to a summer vacation spot for people from Boston. Bobby Sager Team Sager | Sager Family Foundation Boston, Massachusetts, United States 493 followers 448 connections Join to connect Sager Family Foundation Yale University Experience. Renovations on Minot Light, for which he paid $222,000, begin in earnest next summer. The Dalai Lama, Sting, and Bobby Sager at Sager's home in Boston in 2012. Lives in Kenbridge, Virginia. It is 25 feet in diameter at its base and 12 feet in diameter at the top. We made kites and flew them anytime, as there was always a breeze coming off the ocean.. Beacon in a storm might be one of the most overplayed metaphors of all time. 17.5 The Fresnel lens, manufactured in Paris by F. Barbier, completed one revolution every thirty seconds atop a mercury-filled float and was placed in operation on May 1, 1894. Fun? Bobby Sager says, repeating my question. Some have been preserved by gigantic efforts: Already Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, the tallest lighthouse in the country at 193 feet, and Gay Head Light on Marthas Vineyard, among others, have been physically moved back from the edge of the sea, a painstaking process involving digging up the foundation and rolling it inland on hydraulic beams. The tragedy that earned the area its name happened in 1754, when a prominent Boston merchant named George Minot lost a valuable ship there; henceforth it was called Minots Ledge. The Coast Guard, once mandated by Congress to staff and operate Boston Light permanently, has greenlit a search for a new owner through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. Although the area is no longer populated by Indians who believe in the evil spirit of Hobomock, for years tales have abounded of strange moaning, tapping, and even mysterious polishing of the lens by ghostly hands. The solitude and thunderous crashing of the waves drove more than one keeper insane. Part way to the tower, the dory sprang a leak. Saugerties Lighthouse on the Hudson River, in upstate New York, offers overnight accommodation. The Late Gale at Minots Rock Light, John W. Bennett, 1851. And, with that, the Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Roadshow was born. In 1847, a crew began working from a schooner anchored next to the ledge, and over two years and $39,000 later, on January 1, 1850, Minots Ledge Lighthouse was illuminated for the first time. Grover was cleared in court, but the accusations, and other difficulties, would continue. Its not just the Minots Ledge lighthouse thats changing hands. The worst storm that struck the island during Keeper Williams lengthy tenure began on January 31, 1898 and was described by Williams in a letter to The Portsmouth Herald. Crossing back over the bridge, we make our way up: five spiral clangy metal flights; past a bunk room, the keepers quarters, and a third-floor kitchen; and to the lantern room. Fanad Lighthouse is a historic working lighthouse at the mouth of Lough Swilly, Ireland, that offers overnight stays. Boon Island Thomas Farragher is a Globe columnist. After a year on the island, Keeper Hanna wrote the following threat: unless the Government provides for me and my family as agreed, I shall on the first day of April leave this place. Hannas request was forwarded to Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin with the following notation, it has been difficult to get anyone who would consent to accept the appointment as keeper for the compensation allowed. Go help someone.. After two more working seasons, six thousand tons of Quincy granite supported a bronze lantern nearly 100 feet in the air. Local nonprofits and people in the public sector have begun exploring an ownership transfer of the historic landmark through the 2000 act. To ease the burden, two assistant keepers, the stations first, were assigned to Boon Island in 1855. The lights base, an almost invisible outcropping of rocks off Cohasset, Massachusetts, has plagued mariners for more years than the light has protected them. But, ultimately hes turning it into a vacation house. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff/File/Globe Staff, What kind of a guy buys a lighthouse? The need for a beacon at the ledge was not lost on lighthouse inspector I.W.P. People named Bobby Sager. In spite of Boston Lights historic importance, it will be a huge challenge for the next steward to preserve the station, says Jeremy DEntremont, when I later reach him inside New Hampshires Portsmouth Harbor Light, home of the American Lighthouse Foundations local chapter. Seeing the keepers predicament, the assistants in the lighthouse sprang into action and used a rope to lower Assistant Keeper Whitman to the water where he was able to seize Reamy. Fine. Waller has been coming here from his home in Malden at least twice a month for eight years. Keeper Per S. Tornberg, who was in charge of the lighthouse from 1924 to 1936, had an even closer brush with death. He studied economics at Brandeis and has a masters degree in management from Yale. I ask Waller if he ever imagines himself as one of the lightkeepers. He is the president and historian for the American Lighthouse Foundation and founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses, and he has lectured and narrated cruises throughout the Northeast and in other regions. Brazil. She started in Hatteras, North Carolina, near where she grew up and moved north, toward Hull, Mass., toward my dad. The act sets a high bar for ongoing and pricey preservation and education. When there are no takers in this phase, private owners like Waller go to bid on lighthouses through public auctions. She is shaking a good three feet each way as I write. Lighthouse. In 2016, Sager also purchased Michigans Grays Reef Lighthouse at auction. One has to have a varied knowledge of things to be a lightkeeper. Otherwise I wouldnt do it. Shoals, Reefs, Harbor Lights, Islands in Rivers and Harbors. The ladder up from sea level, Graves Light, built in 1905. That lighthouse is part of our narrative, and I dont think were the only weirdos who put emotional weight on places. That cistern had green scum an inch thick on top of it., Despite the storms and hardships, several children and grandchildren loved their time on Boon Island. Undaunted, Captain Alexander began anew. At 133-feet-tall, the new Boon Island Lighthouse, built of granite quarried in Biddeford and lined with brick, was and is the tallest in New England. Were climbing up this? I ask, as if its not obvious. The stone dwelling designed for two keepers is occupied by three, two of whom have families. Sager also was a partner and the president of Gordon Brothers Group from 1985 to 2000. Owner/site manager: private. Minots blinks 143, so people call it the I Love You Light, and before Ray J made it a bad R&B song, my parents would sign letters and then send texts 143. Navigation has largely transitioned to mariner-operation systems. In the near distance, like a stony sentinel a mile off Cohasset, Minots Ledge Light rises out of the Atlantic, beaming its famous sequence one flash (pause), four flashes (pause), three flashes (pause) charmingly decoded as I love you.. He says he didnt have any solid reason for buying it, just that same deep-seated nostalgia and a long-standing but loose family tie. Sri Lanka. I was scared out in that placeIt was an awful life., On August 20, 1932, a newspaper printed a letter about the life of a keeper at Boon Island. Log In. The lighthouse is a three-story cast iron square structure, 45 feet in height, that rests on a cylindrical tower. By 1818, an increase in salary prompted unscrupulous competition for the job at Boon Island. Turn left on Site open; tower closed, except for those with dinner reservations. Head: Benjamin Wane (1811), David Oliver (1811 1812), Thomas Hanna (1812 1816), Eliphalet Grover (1816 1839), Joseph P. Junkins (1839 1840), Mark Dennet (1840 1841), John S. Thompson (1841 1843), John Kennard (1843 1844), Isidore S. Thompson (1844), John Kennard (1844 1846), Nathaniel Baker (1846 1849), John S. Thompson (1849 1853), Hiram Tobey (1853), Caleb L. Goold (1853 1854), George Bowden (1854 1855), Josiah Tobey (1855 1859), Nathaniel Baker (1859), Joseph H. Hart (1859 1861), George B. Wallace (1861), Benjamin Bridges (1861 1864), R.C. In 2013, the Kittery Historical and Naval Museum announced it was having difficulty paying the premium on the $800,000 insurance policy for the Boon Island lens. (Photos courtesy of Dave Waller) Some of the people purchasing auctioned lighthouses feel the same as me, and theyre buying them to save them. Brides (1940 at least 1942) . The first man offered the position refused. The fact that it no longer belongs to the public that its owned by an individual who can turn it into a vacation house or tear it down feels like a transgression. When no qualified custodian was found, an online auction for the lighthouse was opened on May 14, 2014. Christopher Sager, Age 41. aka Chris Sager. Use Henry David Thoreau described passing Minots Ledge Lighthouse in 1849: Yes. The valley is getting smaller as the ocean is getting closer. . Next summer Waller, who has been awarded by the American Lighthouse Foundation for his work in preservation, will finally finish the near unimaginable with the installation of a rare antique first-order Fresnel lens with the refracting glass once commonly used to intensify light for mariners. It was above being a captain of a ship, because you were the guardian of all the ships, he adds. There was always something to do on the island. The reasoning was that the legs would offer almost no resistance to the wind and water. But almost no one navigates just by visual markers these days, which is why in 2009, the Coast Guard decided that they didnt need to hold on to Minots Ledge Light anymore. Comparative Table of Lens Orders David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Graves Light sits on a rocky ledge in the middle of Boston Harbor, surrounded by water. Weve all stopped to take a picture of these icons, lighthouses, at some point, but in another 50 or 100 years we might not be able to. Their website is full of Black Hawk helicopters and former cop cars. The present lighthouse was constructed in 1854, along with a new dwelling. In 2000, the GSA, the Coast Guard and the Department of the Interior passed The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, an amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. There were two Coast Guard keepers on the island when the storm hit, tossing boulders across the island. Plus: lighthouses where you can spend the night. The light from six lens-lanterns was displayed from April 22 to May 1, while the old lens was removed and the new one installed. 3.15 an immediate left onto Government Island where you will see the lantern room replica. We always find the answers by asking how they did it back in the day. Find the closest hotels to Boon Island Lighthouse, Select a photograph to view a photo gallery, Boon Island, a tiny outcropping of granite, only two football fields long and fourteen feet above sea level at its highest point, is located six-and-a-half miles off Maines southern coast. The dory was leaking so badly, that one man had to bale while the other manned the oars. One of the first lighthouses that he built of granite was the Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse, in 1837. Gulls circle round in clear skies, and time slows. The U.S. General Services Administration, which is essentially the real estate arm of the government, was tasked with getting rid of it. He is also the producer and host of the U.S. Lighthouse Society podcast, "Light Hearted." He can be emailed at Jeremy@uslhs.org But Waller, who has been in close touch with him because Sager was the other bidder for the Graves light, says that hes talked to him about his plans, and that, for now, hes going to leave it untouched. While the island itself is barren, it has a lush history best told in the words and deeds of its keepers and their families. Second Assistant: Joseph Antoine (1850 1851), Andrew W. Williams (1860 1861), William S. Taylor (1861 1865), Alden Simmons (1865 1870), Albert H. Burdick (1870 1874), Wallace Willcutt (1874 1876), Thomas J. Sheridan (1876 1877), Amiel Studley (1877 1879), Joseph B. Vinal (1879 1880), Alonzo Smith (1880 1881), Frank F. Martin (1881), Daniel M. Ryan (1881 1882), Albert H. Burdick (1881 1883), Joseph Jason, Jr. (1883), Joseph E. Frates (1883 1892), Winfield L. Creed (1892 1894), George A. Jamieson (1894 1895), Maynard F. Rush (1895 1896), Roscoe G. Lopaus (1896 1905), Charles G. Everett (1905), Levi B. Clark (1905 1909), Octavius H. Reamey (1909 1910), Vivian A. Currier (1910), Andrew Tullock (1910 1913), Henry M. Bailey (1913 1915), Otto W. Newman (1915), Charles R. Albrecht (1915 1916), Winfield S. Thompson (1916 ), John M. Scharff (at least 1917), Whitman (at least 1917), Charles A. Lyman (1919 1921), Francis R. Macy (1922), Per F. Tornberg (1922 1923), George H. Fitzpatrick (1924 1925), Pierre Nadeau (1925), Harold L. Havender (1926 1927), Samuel Perry ( 1928), Llewellyn D. Rogers (1928 1930), Stanley M. Brackett (1931), Stanley M. Brackett (1932 1933),Otis E. Walsh (at least 1936), Elton H. Hegarty (1937 1938), Gustav H. Larson (1938 1939), Patrick J. Its peaceful. Construction wasnt easy. Bobby Sager, chairman of Polaroid and founder of the Sager Family Traveling Foundation and Road Show, wrote to Assad's adviser Bouthaina Shaaban that international media distorted and. As the iron supports began to snap one by one, the bell was silenced, the beacon was extinguished, and the men were cast into the raging sea. I dont have to fill in all the boxes before I decide to do something, for better or worse.. Of course placement of the granite blocks was conducted only at low tide when the sea was calm; even so, many times construction workers were swept off the rocks by the waves. See Sarah Sager's age, phone number, house address, email address, social media accounts, public records, and check for criminal records on Spokeo. * Newburyport Harbor Range Front (relocated) 1873. From there it would run into a cistern in the cellar. Instead, Swift proposed a radical new design consisting of nine, sixty-foot-long iron pilings cemented five feet into the submerged rock, atop which would perch the lantern and keepers dwelling. Florence Idella Batty: Memories of Maines Boon Island,, Keeper of the Light Was Painter of the Light,. Then the property goes to a private auction. Along the way, hes fostered micro-lending in Third World countries, befriended the Dalai Lama (A great sense of humor), sat with Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa, and replaced the ragtag soccer balls used by African children with brand-new indestructible yellow ones. If you apply too much logic to itlook at the cost, the resale, and the amount of workit doesnt make sense, says Waller. The granite had to be cut and assembled on Government Island, attached to the mainland in Cohasset Harbor, and then pulled by oxen to a vessel that would transport the stone out to the ledge. Sign up today. Keepers were by-the-book, sober, carefully chosen men. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, North Carolina, is traditionally open for climbing the stairs, though closed periodically in recent years for restoration. I think thats what attracted me to Graves and to other things in my life. Head: Isaac Dunham (1849 1850), John W. Bennett (1850 1851), Joshua Wilder, Jr. (1860 1861), James J. For the past 150 years the lighthouse has warned boaters about the shallow, shipwrecking rocks close to shore, but recently the Coast Guard decided it wasnt relevant anymore, and this fall the light became private property. By 13 he was a paper boy, and on Saturday mornings he helped his. It means tracking down plumbing to shoot water 96 feet up to the kitchen, and replacing rusting cast-iron stove burners with noncorrosive brass because the salt air rusts everything, even inside. Florence related a similar experience had by Keeper Harold Hutchins. At the conclusion of the operation, a memorial plaque honoring Joseph Antoine and Joseph Wilson, the two keepers lost with the lighthouse, was lowered to the seafloor. The ledge its built on was notorious for wrecking boats because of its steep shelf and twitchy tides. Two lighthouse keepers were killed when it went down and theyre said to haunt the new house. Shoals, Reefs, Harbor Lights, Islands in Rivers and Harbors. 3rd But the Boston philanthropist was disappointed to learn. They try to put them in the hands of groups that will keep them open to the public, but sometimes, like in Minots case, no public entity wants the responsibility. What kind of a guy buys a lighthouse? Hanna later returned to the service as keeper at Franklin Island. (Photo: Javaris Johnson/Snipezart). The second, David Oliver, accepted, but left without notice to work aboard a ship after the government refused his salary request. 440 to 660 Oil Consumption Per Hour (oz.) It says a lot about Dave Waller that he and Bobby Sager have worked out an agreement, making Sager a partner in the Graves Light project. He and his wife pulled their two children out of school and traveled the world. The flashes within a group were two seconds apart, while the groups of flashes were separated by five seconds of darkness. You realize they had it all figured out long ago, says Waller, now a pro at finding the right tools and the right people. I sincerely hope Sally will play a role in its next chapter, says Waller of his longtime neighbor. Two water tanks, weighing about four tons each, were lifted off their granite foundations and carried a distance of seventy-five feet to the northeast end of the island and totally wrecked. As one keeper here recently said, I thought all one had to know how to do out here was to clean, paint, and polish brass, but I have found out that one has to be doctor, painter, steeplejack, glazier, boatman, gasoline engineer, electrician, stonecutter and even a cook when the women folks leave us in the fall., Miriam (Dolby) Hammel, wife of a coastguardsman stationed on the island during World War II to watch for German U-boats, had fonder memories of Boon Island. Waller on the bridge between structures, on the lighthouse acreage. Sager has agreed to share financial resources and Dave has agreed to share the lighthouse. He and his partner made their fortune by transforming a small Boston jewelry liquidator into a worldwide financial advisory company. Whaleback Lighthouse sits at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, Kittery, Maine; the Atlantic Ocean stretches away in the background. The same guy who purchases a meteorite that fell from the heavens in Ghana and places it in a little red wagon in his living quarters. For Waller, who owns a special effects company in Boston, restoring the lighthouse and its artifacts is a continuum of problem-solving. Pakistan. Since purchasing the lighthouse at a government auction seven years ago, Dave. Sitting at a table just steps away from where Hillary Clinton recently appeared at a fundraiser, Sager said hes driven by a counterintuitive impulse: a kind of altruistic selfishness. Free shipping for many products! . A Coast Guard motorboat from Allerton finally reached the scene and picked up all of the men, who were three miles past the lighthouse at this point and unable to return to the mainland due to the wind. Sager grew up in Malden, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, so maybe he just has that same nostalgia-fueled fascination. He amassed 13 units in a luxury Boston high-rise to create for himself a spacious, highly individualized home occupying three floors. Rwanda. This light is best viewed from the water, though distant views are possible Lighthouses arent the only kind of obsolete public buildings that we put on a pedestal I think people feel similarly about fire towers but lights hit the crosshairs of history, design, adventure, and allegory. Im not doing this because I was touched by an angel, or because I feel guilty about making too much money, he said. It is old and its interior is in bad condition, needing thorough renovation. . Eva recalls, Sometimes I played alone on the rocks, and when there were a lot of seals, Id make believe that was my army. Though the government has the right to reject all bids if it believes a fair market price has not been achieved, the $78,000 bid was approved a few weeks after the auction closed, and the lighthouse was awarded to Arthur Girard a real estate developer from Portland, Maine. Sager hasnt officially said anything about what hes planning to do; hes actually been radio silent since the sale. Find your friends on Facebook. #ada-button-frame { The Coast Guard has already divested the vast majority of offshore lighthouses, says DEntremont. We cut off the cabin and converted it into a barge to haul heavy materials out to Graves, says Waller, referring to the historic lighthouse he owns. On the evening before Thanksgiving Day 1890, few provisions remained at the station. 175 steps were required to climb the tower, a task the keepers had to perform several times each night to trim and fill the lamps, often toting heavy containers of lamp oil. Seacoasts, Sounds, River Entry, Bays, Channels, Range Lights. The 2000 National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act was established to maintain these historic structures, saving many, including Graves. Think of making your bed thus in the crest of a breaker! He can be reached at, the government had auctioned it off in 2014. Here was the new iron light-house, then unfinished, in the shape of an egg-shell painted red, and placed high on iron pillars, like the ovum of a sea monster floating on the wavesWhen I passed it the next summer it was finished and two men lived in it, and a lighthouse keeper said that in a recent gale it had rocked so as to shake the plates off the table. William H. Swift, the builder of the lighthouse, felt compelled to respond to the published reports with a letter to the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. 3,530 Hes rechinked the granite blocks to make it watertight, and put in running water and electricity. All the fresh water, wood and necessaries for a family must be carried on to the Island. Gallatin answered with a $100 salary increase. Dave Waller sits in the lantern room during a NorEaster last winter. On October 13th, Bobby Sager, Polaroid's chairman, won the auction and bought the lighthouse for $222,000. The fires inside the dwelling went out after the chimneys became capped with ice. Great Lakes Lighthouses, Seacoasts, Islands, Sounds. I was thinking of that recently as I sat on a South Shore beach, listening to excitement rise in Joe Castigliones radio voice as a home-team fly ball cleared the bullpen wall at Fenway. Joseph Wilson managed to reach Gull Rock, probably mistaking it for the mainland, where he apparently died of exhaustion and exposure. When we have high tides with big storms, we actually become two islands. The damage has limited public access in recent years, and at the bottom of the cliff below the lighthouse, rock-filled cages, used as protection from erosion until they were ripped out of the ground in 2018 by a storm, roll around like tumbleweedsmaking the future of Boston Light even more ominous. When the Coast Guard, which now owns only a small percentage of lighthouses, no longer needs a lighthouse, the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act facilitates a transfer with right of first refusal, at no cost, to a public or nonprofit organization.
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